


The Season's Call

by chalkflies



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23110417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chalkflies/pseuds/chalkflies
Summary: Life has an unquestionable knack for sending us back to our roots.
Relationships: Harvey/Female Player (Stardew Valley), Harvey/Player (Stardew Valley), Sam/Female Player (Stardew Valley), Sam/Player (Stardew Valley), Sebastian/Female Player (Stardew Valley), Sebastian/Player (Stardew Valley), Shane/Female Player (Stardew Valley), Shane/Player (Stardew Valley)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	The Season's Call

Spring 1

The soft rumble of the train engine rolled throughout the carriage, the purr of the machine running up the girl’s back as her gaze was cast down at her fingertips, twiddling her thumbs. The sunlight was barely poking over the horizon, spilling a deep morning glow beside the train tracks as the vehicle sped through the sparsely populated countryside. Ray, sleepless night plastered on her face in the form of soft purple bags under her eyes, sat by herself in a lone carriage, seemingly one of the few, few passengers travelling away from the city on this quiet spring morning. 

Messy grey hair framed her face, her eyes trained to the window as the scenery sped by, the rhythmic mechanical tone of the train comforting her as she sat. Before her, occupying the seat where on perhaps another occasion a close friend may have sat, laid her life. Any belongings deemed vital enough to travel away from her apartment in Zuzu city were neatly packed into old brown suitcases and a couple of cardboard boxes, the latter causing a slight problem considering she had to enlist the help of a passenger a couple carriages down to bring everything onto the train.

A shame she had no one to help her as she moved, not properly.

_“My, Ray, is that you? I haven’t seen you since you were this high!” A voice called from further down the small bar, pulling Ray’s attention away from her drink that she was swirling absentmindedly in one hand. Her eyes met with a man who looked slightly younger than her grandfather had looked, grey hair sketching telltale signs of his age as she racked her brain to recall who he was. As though he already understood the thoughts she was mulling over, he had made his way slightly closer to the young girl, a smile on his face. “Mayor Lewis of Pelican Town, I was friends with your grandfather” He explained, his expression softening as he caught Ray’s eyes as they lit up in recognition, the girl offering a small ‘of course’ over a meek smile appearing on her face. “It’s such a shame I had to see you again during these circumstances… It seems like years since you were just a little girl playing around by the river” His voice was slightly softened, the conversation of the other funeral goers lingering in the background._

_“I guess it has been years.” . Unsure really what to say to the man who was so close with her grandfather, Ray let the silence wash over the two of them for a moment. In that second, it was the first time she had felt truly guilty for her absence in her grandfathers life these past few years. Perhaps if she had been there more, Lewis wouldn't have been such a forgotten name, the farm not such a distant memory as she cast her mind back to the few events from childhood there that she still struggled to remember. “He really did care for you, Ray. Wouldn’t stop talking about how well you always did. You made him so proud.” Lewis’s words brought a strange wave of twisting sentimentality over her, and she paused to sip her drink._

_“I hope I did, really.” Another drink. “Im sorry for being so quiet, it’s just such a, well, strange day.” Lewis nodded, as if to brush away her apology with a kind look. “You’re always welcome to visit, Ray. I know some of us down in the Valley are still your family, even if he’s gone.” His words were not a lie told to help her feel better (like she ever would at her grandfathers funeral), but more an outreached hand, a kind extension of support._

_“Thank you Lewis. It really means a lot."_

_And it did._

To another person in her position, this move, this lifestyle change may have been considered preposterous. The few bags contained a fraction of what she had before, most things not close enough to her heart passed away to acquaintances or work colleges, all of them posing the same question upon hearing why she was giving things away.

“Why?”

She wanted to say that it was simple, that she was just moving into what was rightfully hers after she discovered not long ago she was the sole heir to her grandfathers farm. But truthfully, the answer was more than that. When the question is why did she feel the urge to abandon her old life, the answer is never so simple.

Perhaps it was the late nights with little reward working in the Joja labs, whittling away her passion and staining under her usually bright green eyes with a constant sign of exhaustion. Perhaps it was her friends, all of which were pioneers of the corporate ladder, doing whatever they could to reach the next rung, even if it meant stepping on others that they considered friends or lovers. Perhaps even it was the city itself, the constant buzz and excitement finally becoming dull enough once she was exposed for too long.

Perhaps, under it all, it was the urge to go back to her roots, many years after a young child with her name thrived there.

Stardew Valley was not a foreign name to Ray, anything but so. Despite only visiting when she was merely a young girl, thoughts of the town stayed with her for a long time. The summer Luau around the age of 6, she remembered, was a memory that stayed with her, holding her grandfather’s hand as cool waves lapped her small feet. Now as she was travelling back to the valley, that memory seemed to be one she was recalling often, not to her dismay. The comfort of the fact that she was not entirely unfamiliar with the place was a welcome breath of air.

Looking outside the train window, a sign flashed by almost too quick for her to see it, though her eyes followed, barely catching the words.

‘Stardew Valley, 10 miles.’

Perhaps she should bother the kind young man a couple cabins down again for his help.

_“Oh, and Ray, make sure you're down with the prototype synthesis report by next friday, Jameson wants to get the sample production up and running as soon as!” A coworker, one that she could not pinpoint, reminded Ray, leant on the top of her cubicle with arms crossed and a cocky smile across his face. Maybe he thought he was being charming. “I can do, but I ran into a slight problem when reviewing the synthesis procedure. I was just checking through with the simulations, apparently Jameson wants about 3 times the recommended amount of Sorbitol in the new prototype? You think I should ask him about it? I mean, it could really mess up some of the customers…” She spoke, looking up at her co worker with a slight eyebrow raised in confusion, still mulling over to herself what to do as the prototype product plans laid before her._

_To her surprise, her coworker instead of saying anything that would help her, just let out a deep chuckle. “Oh Ray, you’re so cute you know?” She didn’t know how he knew her name “What the customer doesn't know won’t kill them right?” If the smirk on his face wasn't obnoxious before, it was now. “Besides, it’s not like we’re drinking it. We just get paid to make it, darling.” Ray was too shocked to say anything at this point, earning another chuckle as her coworker turned, not before giving her another ‘gentle’ reminder to get the report done._

_He left with the sounds of his polished brown shoes echoing against the blue tiles._

“Thanks so much for your help! I probably should have gone with a moving van, but you know, trains are faster.” Ray smiled across as the young man, who just now had shuffled down the cabinsalongside her with two rather large cardboard boxes in his arms. He flashed her a grin back, rubbing the back of his head after he placed down the two boxes beside the train doors. “It’s no problem really, not for someone as nice as yourself” He complimented, but Ray’s attention was caught elsewhere as the train began to slow down.

Outside of the cabin windows, the bright colours of the valley were in full view, deep greens of forests colouring the land whilst in the distance the sparkling teal of the south coast ocean glittered in the sun. The train curved around the higher up valley hills, giving the pair a view of the country that Ray was sad to say she had never seen before. 

“It really is something, huh?” The voice of the man beside her sounded, Ray only responding with a soft nod as her eyes scanned over the valley. _She lived here now,_ was a thought that clouded her head, _this was her home_ , and for the first time since breaking out of the dingy grey Zuzu horizons, she felt hopeful.

Almost as soon as the sprawling valley come into view, it was snatched away by a tunnel that the train entered in the mountain. The tannoy sprung into life announcing they were ‘arriving in Stardew Valley station momentarily’, shocking Ray into life as she bundled up her belongings in her arms, readjusting the straps of the heavy bag on her shoulders. The cabin sprung itself into light once more, reemerging from the tunnel and decelerating a stop outside of the train station. Through the windows, laid the sight of a clearly old and rarely used train platform, the wood well worn and slightly dusty. At one end of the platform, stood a pair of townsfolk, one of them being Lewis in his familiar brown cap, stood beside an orange haired woman who was chattering on about something to the aforementioned man as they stood at the station.

“You need any help getting this stuff onto the platform?” the man offered, earning a small shake from Ray and a nod in the direction of the train platform. “It’s ok, I have a couple people waiting for me out there.” She explained, Lewis and the red haired woman now much closer to the train cabin.

“You’re moving out here right?” He asked, as if the confirm a fact that was already laid before him. The grey haired girl nodded, the innocent question providing a sense of formality to her situation. As if it was finally making everything real.

“Yeah, a new farm.” she explained, her voice wavering slightly as she answered. _Her own land, her own responsibilities. The scariest move of her life,_ she had wanted to add, but dumping her worries about the move onto stranger seemed uncalled for, especially one that had been so kind so far.

He held a hand up in a vague gesture out of the windows and across the land below, pointing down to the settlement down from the train station. “You’re lucky, the valley out here is beautiful” he added, the rocky mountains surrounding the train as it pulled into the station.

And so it was.

The doors opened with a hiss, exposing the pair to the cool spring air and hitting Ray with a somewhat terrifying sense of finality. This was it. This was the beginning of the next chapter of her life. “Thank you for the help again, you don't know how much it means” Ray thanked the stranger once more for what seemed like the millionth time, and turned away once he shooed her with a wave and a small ‘good luck’.

With as must courage as she could muster, she placed a single step onto the train platform below.

_A train is passing through Stardew Valley._

**Author's Note:**

> Ive been sitting on this fic for about a year now, and ive decided to go ahead and post it finally. Im unsure how frequent updates will be, but if you enjoy/want to see more please let me know! currently im undecided on Ray's love interest, I have a few ideas but id love to see what you guys think!
> 
> thanks for reading<3


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